


all things go.

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-27
Updated: 2007-07-27
Packaged: 2019-01-19 17:04:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12414336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: "Madness runs in the family. He’s known this; he’s always known this." In the last week of his life, Draco reflects. Post-HBP. Edited and updated.





	all things go.

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

Madness runs in the family. He's known this; he's always known this. Greybeck once told him that it takes a week for the Dark Lord to kill a traitor. Not because he can't find him, (of course he can find them, it is the Dark Lord, after all.) but because he likes their fear, their terror, as they await to be hunted, to be killed. And on the last day, when they think they have won - that is when he strikes. 

_[Day One]_

It doesn't stop him from running. It is all he can do. Snape bought him time: Snape, the man who killed Dumbledore on his mother's wishes, the man who saved him from the Dark Lord, the man who is a spy, a traitor, a mole, a Mudblood. Snape went back. Snape told Him that Draco was hiding from the Aurors and the Ministry, and that he couldn't risk being found. But the Dark Lord knew. He knew, despite Snape's powers and his srength, because Snape was weak - weak from fear and worry and heartbreak. And now Snape is dead and they sent him his wand.

Severus is dead, and now it is only a matter of time.

Sometimes he wonders if they will bother to find him. What if they forget about the disgraced son of The Malfoy, le petit dragon? What if they are so distracted with finding and killing Potter that they don't notice his absence? What if they are so pleased with Dumbledore's death, they forget to punish him? It is only his pride that stops him from weeping; he has no more hope, no chance of surviving. 

He burned Snape's wand - no use in letting them track me with it; I'll have to go Muggle, and live like dirt. Just so that they will not find me - and let the ashes float away, drift in the wind. They were tossed and turned, finally free. Draco can not do the same to his own wand, can not allow himself to rid himself of that stupid piece of wood, that useless, stupid, stupid, stupid, piece of shit, that...

He finds a cave as dusk is settling, a few kilometres away from the Forest. The mountain, the one he used to see from a distance in the towers (when he used to watch the sunrise), arched high above him, and over-looked the dark and twisted trees. He is cut and bruised and probably dying but can't quite bring himself to notice. He sees bones littered on the floor, but is too tired to care.

When he sleeps, it is the deep, troubled sleep of a broken man. 

_[Day Two]_

He awakes with the sun, his tongue thick and dry - his lips cracked and bleeding. There is a hunger in his stomach unlike he has ever known. As he lies in the morning light, half- covered by the shadows of the cave, half-exposed to the world, he remembers Auntie Bella: the dark woman, with the half-mad grin, and the evil glint, and he thinks: this is what its like to be her. 

He cannot move for minutes - or maybe hours. When a bird calls in the forest, he has to stifle the urge to chase it - he is not mad yet. But Snape taught him things. Small, useful things before he went away and

(the voice in the back of his mind, the voice of truth, or as he likes to call it, the voice of Black, finishes the sentence for him, words too terrible to speak aloud, too terrible to imagine - _murder_.)

and so he finally moves, finally brings himself to find water, to gather some berries, to sharpen some sticks. He can't seem to think, and for that he is grateful. The thought of his actions - the knowledge that he has been reduced to Muggle ways and forms Ð is worse, far worse than death. (And isn't that the tragedy?) 

But he is driven by hundreds of millions of years worth of evolution to eat, to survive. His pride is almost gone, now, and he clings to one important truth: I am right.

The day brightens and the heat is cruel. He moves on from the cave and he walks without purpose, or direction. He fears the light; fears being seen (which is ludicrous, because the area is deserted Ð has always been deserted Ð and not even Muggles dare venture towards the dark depths of the forest). But Draco has been living in it for a week now, and knows that if you stay silent, if you keep your head down, and avoid attention, you can go far in the dark. 

(a haunting, taunting voice, tells him that maybe if he learned this lesson years, months, days ago, he might not be in this situation. He might be free. He might be whole.)

_[Day Three]_

He wonders if it is possible to be mad on your third day.

The colours have changed. The light seems darker now, and the green seems brighter. The blood of the evening sky haunts his dreams, and his sleep has become disjointed and bizarre. He naps in order to avoid reality, and passes the time by trying to find food. He has become quite skilled at making fireplaces. He uses the bones to small mammals as a hearth, and it suddenly strikes him that once the thought of touching the remains of a living, breathing creature Ð something that felt and maybe even thought Ð would cause him to recoil in disgust. But not any more.

(He wonders when he lost his pride, only to realize that it wasn't his to have to begin with. )

And still, he walks.

_[Day Four]_

It is raining. Thunder roars overhead, and he huddles under a tree, his cave, struggling to light a fire with wet wood, shivering against the cold, still dressed in his wet robes, and he realizes he has never been so terrified in his entire life. Lighting cracks, and for one wild moment, he thinks he sees a tall, shadowing figure at the base of the cave, but the wind shifts, and it is gone. He can't breath; he can't think. He's crying, for the first time since he was eleven years old, and Harry Potter beat him once again, and his father was angry, and his mother frowned. 

The thunder drowns out his sobs.

_[Day Five]_

When he awakes, he can't move; his eyes are sore and dry and his lips are cracked and bleeding, but somehow, he's alive. He didn't know until he woke up that he thought he was going to die. His emotions were fried, his mind was working through exhaustion and malnutrition, but somehow, he was alive. And damned if he didn't feel good about it. 

He laughs for the first time in recent memory. His voice cracks from disuse, and sounds foreign and strange. But maybe that's because he's never been so truly happy before. Or maybe it's because he's never found anything so damned funny as being happy to be alive when at any minute he could be dead and there was nothing he could do about it. The laughter ends, and dissolves into fresh tears and he remembers why he hates crying. Once you start, it never ends.

He ignores his sniffles, and goes to find food. Instinct overruled emotion, and for the first time in his life, Draco didn't care about his pride.

_[Day Six]_

All he does now is walk, sleep and eat (no time for thinking, must keep going). He walks slowly at times, quickly at others. He travels through open fields, and country sides; avoids villages and towns, and sleeps under the moon. His wand is in his pocket at all times Ð he dares not use it. He will not make their life easier by using spells that will catch attention. He will live off the land, like a pilgrim, like a Muggle. He wonders if his father would appreciate that sentiment, and smiles bitterly against the wind because his father is rotting in a cell, away and useless, slowly going mad in his despair, soaking in his own urine and filth. He is antsy. Scared. Nervous. Angry. He is everything at once, and yet, at the same time, numb to his situation. Nervous shock, maybe. Or maybe just defeated. But Malfoys are never defeated. 

_("A man can be destroyed, but not defeated...")_

His father, the cold, demanding and infallible fatherÑthe one who taught him to fly, and hunt, and who read him stories, and who taught him magic Ñ taught him about the Malfoys. The Malfoys, strong and undeniable in their wealth, had power and presence. It was the Malfoy blood in his veins that made him a man, and it was the Malfoy blood that he carried. But there was a tinge to the blood; darkness in the crimson stains. After all, madness runs in the family. And his mother is a Black.

All Blacks are mad. Years of in breeding and inter-marriages and too much fun at family reunions and pure blood mania had resulted in the downfall of the family. Hubris, perhaps: its fatal flaw was it's own pride in its blood. Even his mother, under the cold mask of etiquette, is broken and wounded. And now it ends with him, the last legitimate son to a broken family, with nothing but its name, and its madness. 

That day, he feasts on rats. 

_[Day Seven]_

When he scratches the seventh line on his wand with a bit of sharp rock, he realizes that the end has come. He tries not to think, tries to busy himself with plans (plans on where to go; plans on how to fight, plans on what to do) but all he does is lie in the sun and think. 

He thinks about his life, and what he did. He thinks about Pansy, and her smell; he thinks about flying, and how much he wanted that Snitch. He thinks about his work, and how useless it is in the end. He thinks about himself, and what he has done in sixteen miserable years. He is too young to have changed the world, and yet his time is up, and he knows that he will go with dignity and grace. He imagines death, and what it must be like to be dead, and what it's like to have a green light heading towards you, and about how his mother will feel when they tell her about his death. He realizes he knows so much about his father, and nothing, nothing at all, about his mother, who might be the one person on the planet who loves him, and who is probably dead because he failed Lord fucking Voldemort. 

Anger. It is all he can see, all he can know. He doesn't want to die, he realizes. He doesn't want to be just another murder on Voldemort's wand, just another ghost waiting for retribution. He doesn't want to be a child - a weak, spoiled brat hiding in the shadows because of their own insecurities and drawbacks. 

It is deadly to try and run from Lord Voldemort. 

It is deadly to hide from Lord Voldemort.

It is stupid to think that he can switch sides.

It is stupid to seek refuge with the Order.

It is madness to fight Lord Voldemort. 

Madness runs in the family. He knows this; he's always known this. 


End file.
